All That's Known
by JennMel
Summary: It would soon have to become a rule that the boys were never allowed out unsupervised. It never ended well. What if Greg and Nick were a couple during the events of season 10x9, Appendicitement? A fluffy piece, slash.


Author Notes: Once again, I find myself the fiction monkey of Chemical Nova, who requested a Nick/Greg fluff fic after I got her to see **season 10, episode 9 Appendicitement**. It just so happens that I also decided to centre this fic over that episode. So yes, needless to say this will be **SLASH**, don't like, don't read . It's very U-rated fluff though, of an established relationship. Nothing unsuitable or graphic, promise.

**All That's Known**

Nick blinked, immediately wanting mind bleach, and not for the first time that night feeling really quite guilty for helping to create Henry's birthday this year. "Hey, where're Greg and Hodges?" It gave Henry the opportunity to dislodge Shirley as she began to exchange significant looks with Slick, who had followed Nick into the bar.

"Greg went looking for a phone through in the kitchen, and Hodges for a bathroom."

"Okay, I'll go see if Greg's found anything – radio's a bust. You two, just sit tight hear with Henry, okay?"

"But..." Henry sighed resignedly, deciding that protesting would be pointless. Instead, "You guys got cards?"

Nick managed to repress a snort as he headed around to the kitchen, looking for his wayward CSI. What he found, well, he wasn't sure if he should be surprised, or just kick himself for not having thought of using Greg for this sooner. "Doing a little home-wiring there Greg?"

The ex-labrat glanced up briefly as he continued removing the backing casing from the beat-up phone; the one that had previously hung on the wall, "The radio didn't work." It wasn't a question.

"So you're building us a phone?" Nick asked incredulously.

Greg set down the wires pointedly, removing the flashlight he had tucked precariously between his bent neck and hunched left shoulder, as he looked at Nick, "I am not spending any more time in the company of that woman than I have to. She's giving me a hangover headache just _looking_ at the amount she's drinking!" He returned to his work without giving Nick a chance to reply, causing the other man to smile fondly. Once Greg got caught up in a project like this, there was no distracting him for long.

"I would ask why you've holed yourself up in here, but I'm guessing it has a lot to do with Henry's new love interest." That got Greg's head to snap up as he raised an eyebrow, and then winced sympathetically. "Want me to hold the flashlight?"

"Thanks." He used his teeth to twist out some of the copper wiring at the end of one of the leads as Nick levelled the light, "How's the mouth?"

"Huh?" Nick looked up from where Greg's fingers were lightly ghosting over his work.

"You were spitting blood after the crash, Nick." Greg smiled ruefully.

"Think I lost a back tooth, but I'll live. You?"

"I'm good." Greg didn't look up from his work as he began feeding some wire threads into the main body of the back.

"Greg..." Nick's tone dropped, indicating to the other man that he wanted a better answer than that.

Greg finally looked up this time, recognising 'the voice', "Really. The crash was a pretty big shock, but I didn't get anything more than a few scratches. Not even a concussion for any of us – aren't you proud of _that_ achievement?" He grinned wonkily, before picking up the phone to examine it.

Nick snorted, "That's not precisely how I would describe that crash."

Greg smiled softly, placing the phone back down on the metal counter, before leaning forwards and gently kissing his boyfriend, mindful of his previous injury, "But we're all okay. Admittedly in the middle of one of the most surreal situations we've been in to date, true, but still okay."

Nick smiled gratefully in kind, reaching across as Greg pulled back to gently stroke his thumb against the younger man's injured forehead, "I'll feel better when we're back home."

Greg snorted, "You _never _feel better until we're at home." The pair of them had never been very good at separating their relationship from work, but had been trying really hard ever since Greg had exploded at Nick's rather unwelcome input to the rather heated 'disagreement' the lower level CSI had been having with Catherine at a crime scene. "Phone's ready by the way. I just need to wire it to the external telephone pole."

"I'll do that." As Greg had been working, the sun had begun to filter through the horizon, letting meagre light into the kitchen.

Greg raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, sure, I give you this, you wrongly wire it to the system, thus successfully frying our only hope of making sure this doesn't become a double crime scene as Henry dies from traumatic exposure. Not to mention you'd probably fall off. You're the footballer of this relationship, I'm the Eagle Scout. Let's stick to our strengths here Nicky." He grinned at the mock-scowl Nick sent his way, lightly dodging out of the way of the swat his boyfriend had aimed at his arm.

They passed a poor traumatised Henry on the way out, telling him where they were going. "You know," Greg commented as they put on their shades against the glare of the new morning sun, "It always creeps me out when Hodges is MIA for extended periods." He jerked his head in the direction of the approaching labtech. Nick grinned, before offering to give Greg a boost up the pole.

"It sickens me that you use poor Henry as a decoy, allowing you to spend your time out here checking out Sanders' ass." Hodges sighed dramatically.

"Jealous much?" Greg's voice floated back as he hooked himself like a monkey around the top of the pole, opening the relay box.

Nick decided not to comment. The nature of Greg and Hodges' friendship was a factor of reality that couldn't quite be quantified, or ever understood. He had just learnt to roll with it as part and parcel to being in a relationship with Greg. He suppressed a sigh at the revelation of the brewery in the basement, watching as Greg 'hung-up' on his conversation with Catherine, and swung himself back down, "All hail the genius. Help is on its way!"

"You're not going to let this one go for months are you?" Hodges asked wryly.

Nick smirked, indulging in the fact that they were still technically off duty to kiss Greg chastely on the lips, looping an arm around his shoulders, "That's my Greg."

"You both sicken me, as always." Hodges sighed lightly, "We should probably rescue the birthday boy."

"We are going to be grovelling for the rest of our careers for this one." Greg deadpanned as they headed back inside.

It was a testament to the complete _insane_ nature of the whole debacle that the phone call had not ended matters, shortly followed by the burning of Henry's hand, and the disgusting revelation of Harry's demise.

* * *

Greg settled in a chair in the break room as Henry hobbled his way out. He nursed his coffee and checked the clock on the wall. Ten minutes until their nightshift started. Urgh. He blinked owlishly, trying to create some semblance of mathematical sense as he tried to work out how many hours straight he had been awake.

Nope, it wasn't happening. He'd have to settle for the conclusion of _way_ too long.

Nick watched as Greg's eyes began to lose their focus. He recognised the signs all too well – as a by product of his labrat days, Greg had developed a keen ability to powernap. The blond yawned, catlike, and seemed to almost unconsciously curl up, his eyes falling shut. Nick darted forwards just in time to rescue the coffee before it spilt everywhere as Greg's grip went lax. He smiled fondly, placing both their coffee cups on the table. Damn, but he wished he could join him. Unfortunately, a dyed in the wool CSI like himself more went with the policy of 'stay-on-feet = stay-awake-until-case-over'.

Sara entered the room, raising an eyebrow when she saw the pair, "Hey, I heard what happened – I thought Catherine sent you home?"

Nick frowned, "Well, if she did, I missed that memo. I thought you weren't working tonight?"

Sara rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I wasn't – I'm picking up for you two with Wendy helping. Did you really think Catherine would make you work tonight? You've pretty much pulled a triple already."

Nick's shoulders sagged in relief, "Well, thank God for that, because I wasn't positive my patience could have held if we'd had a repeat bizarro-land case like last night."

"S'okay – I would've stopped you from shooting someone if it came to it." Greg murmured sleepily, shifting slightly so that his head fell to rest against Nick's side, who was standing by his boyfriend's chair, before pretty much falling back to sleep again.

Sara shook her head, "How _does_ he do that?"

"Grissom once theorised labtechs retain a partial mentality of a little kid to allow them to nap and work simultaneously." He smirked, "He concluded Greg was an extreme example."

"What had he done that time?" Sara grinned.

"I believe that was the week Greg delivered our DNA results via his paper airplane courier service."

"Ah, of course." Sara snorted. "Need help getting him to the car? You look pretty dead on your feet yourself. You gonna be okay driving home? I could drop you off on the way to my scene?"

"Nah, you're alright, we'll be fine. I'll crash once I've got this one here into an actual bed."

"Night guys." Sara smiled as she headed off.

"C'mon Greg, time to go home and get some real sleep."

Greg mumbled something incoherent, but seemingly rebellious, before he wrenched his eyes open and stretched, "Awesome." He downed his lukewarm, yet still precious coffee, causing Nick to pull a face, both from the concept, and from the knowledge of how much caffeine those gulps had contained.

Greg was a serious anomaly of kinetic energy.

In the end, it was Greg who drove them home, citing that one car crash per week was enough for him, and that he felt more awake from his nap. They made it back to their apartment as the distant lights of the strip had begun to splash across the darkening skyline.

Nick yawned, heading to the kitchen to grab a drink of water. By the time he made it into the bedroom, Greg was curled up on top of the covers, arms wrapped around himself as he buried himself in his hoodie and the duvet he was lying on. It seemed that he had simply toed off his sneakers, and left it at that.

Nick sighed fondly. The first time Greg had done this, he had been annoyed, but now it was just simply part of their routine after a particularly long shift. As a token gesture, Nick asked, "You want to actually get out of those clothes and _into _bed?"

"Wouldn't you like that?" Greg mumbled back.

Nick laughed softly, bending down to kiss Greg, who sleepily responded with a grin, not even opening his eyes. He quickly pulled off his clothes and found a pair of sweatpants, knowing that at some point he would be woken up anyway when Greg finally decided to actually get into bed, as opposed to just spreading out on top of it. "I can't believe you can pull off innuendo when you're basically asleep." Nick lay down behind his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around Greg as the smaller man snuggled further into the soft surroundings, his breathing getting deeper and more even.

"You love me for it." Greg murmured out in a soft breath.

Nick smiled, lightly placing a kiss onto the crook of Greg's neck, "Knew there was a reason."

Patterns of breathing fell in tandem with the other, stress bled away with the presence of a partner, and a soft sleep fell over the pair.

**FIN**

Author Notes: I wrote fluff! I actually wrote _fluff_! *Is proud * Seriously, I don't do happy, nice stuff! It gave me a warm feeling, and making it slash just made it more fun! Hope you liked the tag! Let me know your thoughts if you can!


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